Miscellaneous Mississippi River Pictures

It was a cool cloudy day as the C-Brats cruised on down to St Louis.   Rain threatened but didn't stop the pod of dories.  Rob and I decided to go by land to the first locks to take pictures as the pod came through.  This is a huge lock (width and lengthwise, it is the biggest we've seen by far).  I'm not sure how "high" it as the river levels and height do change, depending on the time of year, by quite a bit.  It needs to be really really long because of the barge traffic.

For example, the other day we saw one tug boat pushing 15 barges... yes, really!  Apparently, the tug can control it going upstream but when going down stream, it can't stop.  It radios ahead when it is coming up to a port, like New Orleans, and requests assistance. Other tugs then are sent upriver to STOP the long row of barges.  So, the lesson is... stay away from those barges as they can't stop for you... heck, I don't even see how they can see a small boat!

The reason I got off onto the topic of barge traffic, is that the pod of dories was held up at the locks while waiting for a big barge to go through.  They waited and waited (and up above, we waited and waited).  Someone later said it took an hour and a half to get through the locks!

See those dots? Those are C-Dories!

waiting so patiently

Lining up

And then the dories are released into the wild...

Each evening of our gathering, we had a cookout and lots of fun and conversation.  Some people went to see Kenny Rogers at the outdoor "band shell" which was between the marina and the casino.  Which is appropriate as his biggest hit was "The Gambler"...   I didn't mention the pink riverboat casino (mostly because casinos aren't our thing... but others of our group say it was very nice).  Here's a picture:

We even had a special guest visit us one evening.. no, it wasn't Kenny and it wasn't Elvis.  More on that later.

We had mixed emotions on Sunday morning when we pulled the boat.  Sad to leave our fellow C-Brats... some of whom were going to spend the next couple of weeks cruising together.. all the way to Little Rock AR!.  (If we hadn't been gone so long, we would have loved to go with them).  Also sad to be "done" with our great adventure.  Now we are on our way home... Driving for the next several days.  And we must admit, we are also very glad to be on our way home.